With the Champions League kicking off today, it is important to look at how AC Milan could progress, and what will be required of Paulo Fonseca’s side ahead of the Liverpool game.
The Champions League remains one of the most exciting competitions in World football, let alone European football and Milan vs. Liverpool is a fantastic game to kickstart things. However, the competition has been reworked.
In the past, teams would be drawn into a four-team group playing each other side twice – once home and once away. This has been scrapped by UEFA, though, in favour of a new league format. Now, clubs will face eight teams in a league system, and the hope is that this will provide a more exciting opening stage to the competition with teams having a larger chance of progression.
Perhaps, this could alter how teams perform in games, as suggested by a journalist earlier today.
This morning, Gazzetta dello Sport looked into how many points may be required to progress through the competition, and their findings have been relayed by Milan News.
How many points do you need to go through in the new Champions League?
“Only the top eight qualify for the round of 16. The football statistics platform ‘Football meets Data’ carried out ten thousand simulations and this is what came out. In 28% of the simulations, 14 points were sufficient for eighth place. In 42% of the simulations fifteen were needed. In 24% as many as 16 points. In short, with five wins and a draw you have a good chance of advancing to the round of 16.”
On the points needed to be in the 24…
“The other place to look at carefully is 24th, the last one that gives the right to play in the playoffs with which the other eight teams with which the round of 16 will be completed will be decided. According to the simulations, eight to nine points should be enough to make it, with 10 being more comfortable.
“These numbers are in line with those of another simulation carried out by ‘ESPN’ before the draw, which gives us an idea of how much balance there could be until the end: with one day to go, only two teams were sure of finishing in the top eight, 17 were in the running for places from third to eighth, and as many as 14 would have played for a place in the top 24 on the last day.”
On the cruciality of the goal difference…
“The goal difference will be decisive: at the end of the last day of this simulation, as many as 29 out of 36 teams ended up with the same score as at least one other team.”
We’re going to be in the second group. No way we get 5 wins and a draw out of our first 8 matches.
Well, problem with sports is that it can’t be predicted.
Milan owner must always invest in new and better players, plus nurture young players.
That’s the only way how to build competitive team year by year and stay strong for higher achievement
no reason we cannot beat Brugge, Bartislava, Red Star, Girona and Dinamo Z. That is 5 wins, if we can take one point only from Liverpool, Leverkusen or Madrid, that will give us 16 pts. We are Milan! only 1 team in the world with more Champions league success then us! its in our DNA! think like a champion and you will be one!
Most probably the simulations are based on 36 teams with equal chances to win in each match. In reality I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of points needed is even higher.
I think best strategy is to never play for a draw, always risk for a win to get the 3 points. Because in closed group of 4, a draw might result favorably for you as it does not give advantage to your opponent pointwise, but in this new model you have 0 impact on what 27 of your opponents achieved. There’s a theoretical chance all the clubs you play against will be at the bottom of the table.
8-10 points to advance to the playoffs. This was the amount of points that would normally get teams through the group stage as the second place in the old format. More games for the same amount of points. UEFA are indeed run by geniuses.
We played so horribly tonight and am not proud to be called an AC Milan fan honestly speaking.
Fonseca football tactics is to poor for a team as big as Milan..
Raphael Leao played poorly and childish tonight
Am not happy tonight Milan has broken my heart, Fonseca should be sacked, pioli is better than him.